never-never land

American  

noun

1. an unreal, imaginary, or ideal state, condition, place, etc.

2. any remote, isolated, barren, or sparsely settled region.

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Never-Never Land Cultural  

1. Originally called Neverland, the home of the title character in the story Peter Pan; a place where children never grow up.

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never-never land Idioms  

1. A fantasy land, an imaginary place, as in I don't know what's gotten into Marge—she's way off in never-never land. This expression gained currency when James Barrie used it in Peter Pan (1904) for the place where Peter and the Lost Boys live. However, in the second half of the 1800s Australians already were using it for vast unsettled areas of their continent (the outback), and there the term became popular through Mrs. Aeneas Gunn's We of the Never Never (1908). In Australia it still refers to northwest Queensland or northern Australia in general. Elsewhere it simply signifies a fantasy or daydream.

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Etymology

Origin of never-never land

1875–85 never-never land for def. 2; reduplication of never

Example Sentences

"It laid bare how incompatible it was to have intelligence services operating in a secret constitutional never-never land and allowed them to become publicly accountable."

From BBC • Dec. 28, 2023

“This means conversations will be more of a never-never land than they already are,” Cohen said.

From Washington Post • Mar. 13, 2018

“But until the bulldozers arrive and the leases are terminated and farmers start to go away, it’s not done. It will be in that never-never land of planning.”

From Seattle Times • Dec. 28, 2017

“And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 15, 2016

Immediately, the breeze took them straight out, as though Peter Pan had donned them to fly across our yard toward never-never land across the Bay.

From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson